Fannie Lou Hamer was an American civil rights activist who first learned she had the right to vote in 1962, more than 40 years after passage of the 19th Amendment. Her courageous fight to register to vote in Montgomery County, Mississippi led to a lifetime of civil rights work that …
The crowd inside the Tennessee State Capitol on Aug. 18, 1920 was colorful, to say the least. Men, mostly state legislators, sported red roses pinned to the lapels of their black suits; women wearing suffragette white filled the visitor’s gallery, yellow roses pinned to their hats, their dresses, even carried …
Women helping women is how Adelaide Johnson rose to modest acclaim as a sculptor in the late 1890’s. Known as the “sculptress of the women’s movement” Adelaide Johnson is best known for The Portrait Monument, a sculpture of suffragette leaders Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Now …
Happy World Honey Bee Day! The buzz is that more than one-third of the world’s fruits, vegetables and flowers are dependent on bees – and they are disappearing. It’s the mission of one of the world’s most preeminent experts, entomologist Dr. Marla Spivak to change that. A chance encounter with …
Labor and civil rights leader Dolores Clara Huerta has always been a force. She spoke of farm workers as essential workers decades before the term became part of the our daily vocabulary. Her rallying cry, “¡Sí se puede!” (Yes, we can!) has inspired more than one movement — maybe even …
Her name means Lotus in Sanskrit. Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions said her questioning “makes me nervous”. She made a YouTube video to teach Senator Mark Warner how to make a decent tuna melt. And yesterday California Senator Kamala Harris made history as the first Black woman and first woman …
Leave it to a woman to help people see clearly. Inspiration struck Alabama native Mary Anderson on a visit to New York City in 1902. Traveling through the wet, snowy city by streetcar, she noticed how often the driver stopped, got out, and cleared the windshield so he could see …
Lynda Barry is a cartoonist, author, graphic novelist, educator and recent MacArthur Foundation Fellow (known as the “genius” grants). And to my 11 and 13-year-old boys she was an inspiration. More about that later. Growing up in a racially mixed, working-class Seattle neighborhood, Barry began drawing comics at an early …
It’s not just the people who give the Chicago Pedway its neighborhood feel. Like any stretch of the city, the Pedway has its own rhythms — when it’s busiest; the good places to eat; where to get a shoe repaired; even the best place for a quick hair cut and …
The first day of school can be scary. New people, new rules, a new environment. Now, add a violent mob, federal marshals, and death threats. This is what six-year-old Ruby Bridges faced on her first day of her new, all-white elementary school. Ruby Bridges was born in 1954, the same …